Lessons
by Cat 2
Summary: Pre Series. Don doesn't know Charlie,but how well does Charlie know Don? Warning Don/Ian


**Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine**

_Beta_ **cerealkiller0** who rules in so many ways

"Good Morning, Don."

"Hey, Nic," Don smiled as he walked onto the firing range and loaded his gun

Though it wasn't even 7 am yet, Don wasn't surprised to Nikita Chekov on the firing range. The half Russian agent was at least the second best shot in Quantico. Unlike Ian, she had to work at it.

He watched, as she slid off the ear protectors and turned to face him.

"Question - are you teaching this afternoon?"

"Why?" He'd learnt the hard way to be careful around Nic, especially when she asked a question she knew the answer to. In his first month here, she'd persuaded him to act as a smuggler in her Drug Enforcement Training scenarios. He wouldn't have minded, she was always willing to return the favour, but she occasionally neglected to remind her students that it was a drill.

"I need someone to help me with advanced Combat."

"Doesn't Ian usually help you with that?"

Nikita rolled her eyes, "On assignment. Doesn't look like he'll be back before tonight" she zoned in on him. "It's just for an hour, just to give the kids a demonstration, I know you're heading home this weekend, and I wouldn't ask, but everyone else objects to having their ass handed to them by a girl, and if you won't do it, then I'll have to cancel the class and-"

"I'll do it."

"Thank you." It was only as Nikita slid her ear protectors back on and turned her attention to the target that Don realised how well he'd been played. He shook his head, laughing slightly.

Well, where was the harm? Might burn off some of the adrenaline that had been pumping though him all night. He shook himself. His instincts were all but screaming at him something was wrong, get out. After tossing and turning until dawn, he'd pulled himself out of bed and headed for the target range, hoping that might relax him

As he focused on the target, he rolled his neck, trying to relax. He was just being paranoid, there was nothing going to happen, expect possibly his dad was going to ride his ass for being late home.

Don shrugged internally. Being late would give his dad and Charlie a couple of minutes together before he turned up.

****

"Alright. Quiet." Nic's voice ran over the room. "Welcome to Advanced Combat. I'm agent Chekov, and I think you all know Agent Eppes."

Don could see the students all staring at Nic. At five foot, three, she just skimmed the agency's minimum height requirements. She was slim, with an hour glass figure. Don had heard some of the kid's referring to her as "the Russian Doll", and it suited her. Nic was like that, full of layers. She didn't look old enough to have graduated high-school, much less made one of the most successful undercover drug bursts against the Russian mob. She doesn't look like she could pass the basic Combat class, much less teach Advanced. Don could see this reflect in the faces of the students and smiled to himself. They were about to get a big surprise.

He forced his attention back, as Nic asked the students who they thought posed the greater risk. Most said Don, but a couple said Chekov.

Smiling, Nic called on one of the students that said Chekov. "Why do you think that, Sanchens wasn't it?"

Don smiled softly. He was going to enjoy watching this. Sanchens had been his class, a complete SOB, fourth generation FBI. Don had little time for students who came in, swing their family's past with the bureau, like it automatically entitled them to something. Most of the best agents he'd ever met were first or second maximum generation. Sanchens in particular had been a challenge, constantly questioning everything Don did. He leant back a little. He was going to enjoy this.

"Because you're female, mam. You could use your..."

"My body, Sanchens? You can say it, we're all adults here." Don was grinning. Sanchens was going to be lucky if he could walk at the end of this class.

"Sanchens has suggested that the danger lies not in my abilities, but with my sex." Nic was addressing the rest of the class now. "Well, there might be some truth in that. However, I'll invite Mr Sanchens to join Agent Eppes in trying to attack me. I promise not to try and seduce him."

Don smiled. As he expected, it took barely five minutes for Nic to wipe the floor with the pair of them.

"As you can see, things aren't always what you expect. Pair up and break out the Kevlar. First, we're going to see how you fight in armour." She turned slightly, then spun around as though she'd just remembered something. "Oh and the first person who tries to get me to say Nuclear Wessels, fails the course."

As the students hastened to obey, Nic turned to face Don.

"You O.K?"

Don wasn't sure; his uneasy feeling form the morning was back in full blast, like something bad was going to happen.

"Yeah." He said firmly. He was being stupid. Nothing was going to happen. He glanced up at the clock, swearing as he noticed that it was already 2:20.

"I've got to go, or I'll miss my flight."

Nic shoot him her patented you don't fool me look, but she shrugged, and started calling the students back towards the mats.

Don headed to the locker room, reaching down to grab his bag. It was only a few seconds later that the screaming started.

****

As Ian walked towards the class rooms at Quantico, his mind wandered back to evening a couple of months ago. Ian, Don, Nic, and Nic's boyfriend, Kimball **Cho, a CBI agent**, had been hanging out together. They'd all been a bit drunk and the conversation had somehow turned to the worst thing they'd ever seen since joining the Bureau.

For Don, it had been a fugitive who'd killed his girlfriend and then cooked her, while waiting for the FBI to get there. Coop, Don's old partner, had apparently lifted the lid off the pot to see a human head floating in it, the eyes looking upwards.

Don swore it had been months before he'd been able to look at a crock-pot without feeling nauseous.

Nic had described a case from when she'd been a rookie Agent. A Drug boss had been murdered, by being attached to a cross -country train. Half his body had been found in Sterling, New Hampshire, and the rest in Comtosook, Vermont.

According to Nic, seasoned cops were throwing up like rookies, and one paramedic nearly dropped the stretcher because he couldn't stop heaving.

Wandering a few feet away, to try and get some air, Nic had found herself staring down at the guy's served head, his mouth still open in a final scream.

Kimball had surprisingly revealed himself as an animal lover, describing a serial arsonist case he'd worked on. The perp had torched three buildings, before they caught up with him at an animal shelter. The guy had gone down in a fire fight, but not before he'd carried out his grizzly work on the dogs. Kimball, one of the most unemotional men Ian knew, had had tears in his eyes as he described the death of one dog, a spaniel that had been burnt alive. According to Kimball, it had been literally just a blacken skeleton, twitching slightly as its life passed away.

Nic had quickly turned it on Ian.

It had taken some thought, but eventually he'd settled on a tracking mission, where the guy had been dead before he even started looking.

He'd followed the trail into some dense woodland, when he'd noticed crows hanging around the branches. At least he had thought they were branches, until he got closer to the tree

That had been when the rope snapped. What landed in his hands, still occasionally gave him nightmares. He hadn't even known it was the guy's head until he looked up. That, he had declared, had been the worst thing he'd ever seen on the job.

He'd changed his mind. This was. Nic always took advanced combat out in a little used classroom, separate from the main building of Quantico She claimed this was because she had too many complaints about her student's screams, but Ian thought that it was simply because it allowed her to run it without anyone breathing down her neck.

The building was simply a rectangle with concrete steps leading up to it. In the late afternoon sun, he could make out a trail of blood leading down the steps. And at the bottom of the steps, trying to pull himself along using his elbows was...

"Don!"

It was only seconds, before he was beside the man, but it felt like hours. Don looked up at him, eyes unfocused, lips open. Ian had been an agent long enough to recognise a man going into deep shock. Don made a noise that might have been words.

Ian followed his eyes, spotting the call point. They'd been installed in their thousands, all around the site, post Oklahoma, all connected to the central Command. Ian reached up.

"This is Edgerton! I have an agent down."

He can hear the voices over the radio, asking for details, but he doesn't notice them. The smell of gun smoke is coming through the doors and he knows that Nic and at least five students are in there.

Already people are coming, and he's moving.

The corridor's deserted and dark, but the smell of gun smoke is still in the air.

The door to Nic's room is open, a student acting as a door prop. He's still alive, still conscious, but barely.

Nic is in the centre, on the mat. She must have been demonstrating a move when the guy struck. As he enters, her head turns so that she can see him.

Her mouth's open and blood bubbles over her lips, one drop running down to hit the mat, as her lips move.

_Why?_

Later on, they'll tell him that he checked on the other students. Gave a complete and accurate assessment of injuries and chances to the agents on the scene. Took control of the situation.

But Ian doesn't remember that. All he can remember is two people asking why he wasn't there.  
TBC


End file.
